Wassup?
Actually, before we talk about answers, we need to talk about the askers of these questions. It’s not exactly waterboarding, but seriously, why are they doing this to you???

Here’s how I see it:

I’m a college. I want to pull together an interesting group of people who for the next four years will live and think and read and do stuff on my campus. They shouldn’t all be violinists. They shouldn’t all be hockey players. They shouldn’t all be mathematicians or speakers of French or bilingual kids from El Paso. But they all should be able to think--reflective people who like to kick ideas around and who will have something to say about the books and projects and other people they'll be experiencing. And, just so we can all share the fun, they need to be able to write. Able to think. Able to write.

So I need to check that out. I’ll be looking at the transcripts as my first and major resource for finding my thinkers and writers. But grades and scores don’t tell the whole story. I’d like to hear my applicants pitch their own mojo. So I’ll ask them to talk to me—they can’t all travel to Mauritius (I’m thinking that would be a good place to have a college; Mark Twain said he thought it was the model for heaven)—so I’ll have them write me a sort of letter thing, just a few lines about this and that. With any luck I’ll get some sense of their insight and, with a document in hand, I will certainly be able to see if they can put together a few cogent and correct sentences.

Ta-da! The application essay is born.

So don’t forget why they’re administering this torture:

Can you think?

Can you write?